


A Wife, a Wolf, and a World to Save

by jakn92



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, F/F, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Work In Progress, spoiler warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5500922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jakn92/pseuds/jakn92
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected event in the life of newlyweds Olette and Sera Adaar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Down to Her Knickers

  
Olette Adaar clutched her throat and tried desperately to restore her breathing to normal. She braced her horns on her knees and tried not to cry. Her body tingled with wasted adrenaline as the world shrank. _Breathe in through your nose, deep breath...good. Now, out through your mouth...again._ She followed the instructions in her mind. Even now after everything that had happened, the sound of his voice was so calming for Olette. _Think of something simple, a song or prayer. Now speak it, focus on the sound of your voice._  
  
“Here lies the abyss...” she began, her voice strained. “Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls. From these emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies eternity. Here lies the abyss...” she repeated the prayer several more times, willing her heart to stop pounding and her sense of dread to subside. Gradually, the attack stopped and she sank from her bed to the floor.  
  
This had to stop. The panic that suddenly overtook her when the smallest things happened was occurring more and more. This time she had reached for a paper on her nightstand, but she'd forgotten that she no longer had that hand. There were times where it felt like it was still there, but the pain that accompanied it could be unbearable. Feeling drained, she climbed back in bed and laid down on her stomach and fell asleep.  
  
“Honey Tongue,” whispered a voice in her ear. Warm breath caressed her cheek. Olette smiled and kept her eye closed a moment longer, savoring the slight pressure of Sera's hand resting between her shoulder blades and the heat of her leg pressed against her side. Opening her eyes, she rolled over and pulled her wife on top of herself. Sera immediately wrapped her legs around Olette's waist and moved to take off her tunic.  
  
They were down to just their knickers and getting nice and worked up when a loud knock sounded from the manor's entrance. “Arse-biscuit!” Sera cursed. “Leave it go, Honey Tongue, let's just be quiet 'til they go away.” Olette was just about to agree when a shout rang out.  
  
“Help me, Herald!” A woman's voice echoed. Olette shot up and ran out of the room, grabbing her staff on the way out. She jumped over the railing of her home. As soon as her feet hit the floor, she fade stepped forward to her door. She swung it open and time slowed as she recognized combat and fell into the natural rhythm of conflict. A man was lowering her sword to strike an elven Chantry Sister clutching a large bundle to her chest. Grabbing the woman and pulling her close, she quickly wrapped a fade cloak around them both, letting the man's blade pass right through their non-corporeal forms.  
  
Dragging her inside and slamming and barring the door shut, Olette ushered the woman into the house. “Get up the stairs! Sera, go with her, there's a big group of them outside.”  
  
“Yea right, I go upstairs!” Sera protested. “I ain't leavin you!” They could hear swords and maces striking the door.  
  
“Go upstairs and pick them off from above, but wait for my signal.” Grumbling to herself, Sera nodded and headed upstairs. Olette let the men break through her door before casting mind blast and slinging them back a dozen feet. Stepping out of her home, she faced a group of 15 humans, all equipped with weapons that were already stained with blood. They watched her grimly as she stepped into the moonlight. Some shifted nervously as the sight of her, at least a foot higher than their tallest man, half naked, one arm, and baring a staff with a similarly bare woman on the top; others hunched down, prepared to fight.  
  
“So,” Olette began. “Which one of you arse-biscuits is paying for my new door?”  
  
“Shoulda known the ox would stick up for her own kind,” one of them sneered. Some through the crowd murmured agreements.  
  
 _Where the fuck is the city guard?_ She wondered to herself. “Look,” she said aloud, “I think it's safe to say you're all horribly outmatched, so how about you all just chip in a gold piece or two for my door repair and then head on your way. The Sister you were trying to kill is staying with me and that's pretty much final.”  
  
“The knife-ear, the ox-brat, and you. We're gonna chop you up in little bits—ugh!” He jerked as an arrow embedded in his neck and he crumbled to the ground.  
  
“Threaten my Honey Tongue again you daft tits, I'll make you all pincushions!” the crowd surged forward and another was downed by Sera as Olette cast a barrier around herself. She fade stepped into the middle of the group and released and energy barrage, sending lighting strikes into the three closest to her. They fell to the ground, convulsing as the lightning coursed through their bodies.  
  
Two men fell to Sera's explosive arrow as Olette swung her staff to slice the throat of the woman in front of her before sending a blast of lightning into another one. A city guard's horn sounded and shouting filled the air. The seven remaining would-be murderers stopped their assault and exchanged glances as they took in the site of their dead and wounded. Little-by-little, they backed up before fleeing entirely. Sera caught one in the leg, making her stumble and scream. Her comrades continued to run.  
  
Olette jogged into her home and up into her bedroom. Sera was still watching out the window. For a short, most assuredly short, moment she was distracted as a stray breeze from outside hardened her wife's nipples. “Lady Shield Bash is runnin up, but that rubbish is long gone. Swear, they crawl out of the bloody walls in this place.”  
  
Olette set her staff down and looked at the woman huddled and shaking in the corner of her bedroom, clutching a now-wiggling bundle to her chest. She stared into the woman's eyes and watched as she pulled the blanket back to reveal a chubby gray face. The baby opened it's eyes, and yawned widely. “Oh, shit-balls, who's a cutie!” Sera squealed, rushing over to the woman who struggled to her feet. “Can I hold her?” Sera asked, reaching out. The older woman blinked and nodded, handing the baby over to Sera. The baby wrapped it's legs around her belly and slapped her left breast. Sera cackled in delight. “Nuthin in there for you, silly.”  
  
Olette turned her attention to the Sister, who immediately fell to her knees. “Thank you. Herald! Thank you so very much. If you hadn't helped me, the babe and I would both surely be dead.” She spoke with an Orlesian accent.  
  
“Sister,” Olette said, helping the woman to her feet. “Why were those people trying to kill you and where did you come across a Qunari child?”  
  
“Well, my name is Sister Illya, I joined the Chantry in Val Royeaux the moment Divine Victoria allowed it. I thought I would be able to serve in my home alienage and bring Andraste to my own people, but instead I was sent to the Chantry here, but—”  
  
“Yes, yes, it was only recently reestablished in Kirkwall after the last one blew up and hasn't had much success integrating Divine Victoria's new edicts,” Olette finished for her, trying to hurry the woman along. Aveline was sure to come ask her about what just happened and Olette needed to understand herself first.  
  
“Correct. Well, as you know there are many Tal-Vashoth groups around Kirkwall and I went to reach out to the Wounded Coast where they congregate to try to bring the Maker to them, but as I was looking for anyone, I stumbled on some sort of attack. Those people were slaughtering a mercenary band. In the fray, I saw this child laying in a basket and wailing into the carnage around it. I was horrified, but I couldn't even think, I just acted. I ran in and grabbed the babe...it's mother was dead...she was reaching for her child when the rogues murdered her.” She paused and took several deep breaths.  
  
“They saw me running away and came after me. My mount got us into Lowtown, but his poor heart couldn't bare the pace. He fell and died and tossed me and the child. But I knew where you lived and I was close enough to make it...and then you appeared, the Maker's Chosen and He saw fit to spare me.” She wept and prayed as she fell to her knees again.  
  
“Yes, yeees,” Sera cooed to the baby. “Not-that-Aveline is comin up.” She bounced the baby and they both giggled madly. Olette pulled on a shirt and buttoned it before offering Sera her own. “I'll hold her, you put this on.”  
  
She slipped her shirt on over her head. “Y'know, you owe me a round of rubbin bits still,” she grinned wickedly.  
  
“Trust me, I look forward to getting back to you on that,” she assured her.  
  
“Lady Herald,” Aveline Vallen stood in her bedroom doorway, taking in the room in a glance before settling her gaze on Olette.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olette and Sera argue. Meanwhile, Hawke pays a visit.

  
Aveline Vallen was at least two heads shorter than her, but the broad-shouldered woman was truly intimidating in a very similar way Olette's friend Cassandra had been when they first met. Both women had a zeal for their work that was truly admirable, but also daunting. Where Cassandra had been dark-skinned and dark-haired, Aveline was fair, freckled, and boasted short red hair that almost looked like a small flame. If what Varric said was true, Aveline was ultimately more easy-going than Cassandra, but she had yet to see it and wondered if the dwarfs characterization was colored by his maybe-I-want-you-maybe-I-hate-you attitude towards the Seeker.  
  
“Please, Olette will do fine.” The Guard Captain nodded even though they both damn-well knew that wasn't going to happen. Handing the baby off to Sera, Olette listened as Illya recounted her story to Aveline. When all was said and done, Aveline appointed a trio of guards to escort her to the Chantry. “We'll keep the baby!” Sera volunteered.  
  
“Wait. What?” She gaped at her wife.  
  
“Not forever, but until we can find a place for her. We got stuff here. Food and clothes and such. C'mon, Honey Tongue,” Sera pleaded, grinning in that wicked way that always melted her heart.  
  
“It might be good for her to be with her own kind after being torn from her family so suddenly,” Illya chimed in sagely. Olette surveyed the faces of the women around her as they all nodded, two because they agreed with the advice and Sera because she wanted her way. Then she looked at the baby in her arms. She'd never seen a baby Qunari before, she realized with a start. She'd been so very young when the Tamassran who would become her mother had stolen her and abandoned the Qun. And she didn't even know if anyone in the Valo-Kas had a partner, much less children.  
  
Had Olette's horns ever been such tiny nubs? Had her skin ever been so mottled? Had she ever been _so small?!_  
Sighing in defeat, she nodded in agreement. Sera's hands flapped wildly in front of her face for a few moments before she reached to take the baby again. Leaving her wife and the child, Olette followed Aveline and Illya to her doorway. She sighed at the remains of her door, splintered all over the ground. “I'll be stationing guards outside your home tonight, so don't worry about anyone else attacking your home,”Aveline assured her before she left.  
  
“You really don't have to burden yourself like that. I was planning to cast a barrier over the entrance,” Olette replied.  
  
“Nonsense! It's the guard's duty to keep Kirkwall's citizens safe. Feel free to barrier your door, but the guards stay.” Olette quickly relented, not in the mood for any sort of fight. Who was she to stand in front of that kind of determination?  
  
Thinking to find something for the baby to eat, she went to rummage through her cold box. Pausing to energize the cold rune she'd carved into the side of the box, she removed the lid and fished out a bottle of druffalo milk. Stuffing a cloth into the top until one end touched and soaked up the milk, while the other end dangled out and began to drip when tipped over, she ventured upstairs. In their room, Sera was crouched over the baby on the bed, burying her face in the round, gray belly and blowing long raspberries. In response, the child was screaming with laughter and pulling on Sera's ears.  
  
“Here,” Olette said offering her the bottle. Still laughing, Sera readjusted the baby in her arms and offered the liquid. For her part, the child quickly latched on. “Where will it sleep tonight?” Olette asked absently.  
  
“She's not an 'it,' you. She's a she. Ooh! And we should give her a name!”  
  
“How do you know she's a girl?”  
  
“Well, just look at her,” saying this, she squeezed the supposed girl's cheeks together for emphasis.  
  
“Pfft, you can't tell just by the face! Baby faces are all the same.”  
  
“You're daft! She'll need a change soon, I bet, so we'll figure it out then.”  
  
“Oh, good, you know how to do that. I was a little worried about that.” She watched her wife's face struggle to become neutral.  
  
“It's not that I know how, exactly. It's not like I've ever done it, but it can't be that hard. After everything we've done, we can figure out a silly thing like that.”  
  
“Sure. Stopping wannabe gods and invasions seems like great preparation for being a nanny.” She stretched out in front of them, resting her head on her hand.  
  
“Since when are you so negative. We'll manage. Anyway, a name. What do you think?”  
  
“My mother used to call me Imekari. It means child. Or Kadan, she said that one a lot too.”  
  
“Ain't that what Bull calls Dorian sometimes?”  
  
“Yeah, I think so. It's a pet name, I think.”  
  
“Well, those are pet names, not name-names. She needs one of those...how about Tadwinks?”  
  
“How is that less of a pet name?”  
  
“S'okay. I was mostly joking anyway...though, that is what I'm calling her now.”  
  
“Okay, Tadwinks it is then. It's not like she'll be here long, so I suppose it won't hurt to call her something silly for a bit.”  
  
“About that,” Sera began, putting the now empty bottle down between them. At some point without Olette noticing, Tadwinks had dozed off, her tiny mouth slightly ajar and allowing a miniscule snore to escape. “Do we really need to find somewhere else for her? We could keep her and be her moms...she could be our baby.”  
  
“You've got to be fucking kidding.” It was out of her mouth before Sera had even finished speaking, the words jumbling out of her in a panic and making the space between the women suddenly thick with an unfamiliar tension. They'd never talked about kids, Olette realized with sinking dread. How could they have? There was always something happening, an emergency, someone who needed saved. Even now their world was on the brink of fiery ruin. So, how the hell could Sera think of raising a child? She wasn't thinking. Couldn't possibly be thinking...  
  
“Do you...do you not want to have a family with me?” Sera tried to keep her face calm, but Olette could clearly see how hurt she was at the thought.  
  
“It's not that, Sera. I would love to have babies with you. I've thought about us having children, but our lives are so dangerous right now. Even if we didn't currently have agents looking for Solas to stop him from destroying the Veil, which he said would take a few years, but we have no way of knowing if that's true or if his plans might change—even if not for that, we're still Jennies. We're gone all the time, out there punching up, remember?” This last line made Sera smile slightly.  
  
“We could get a nanny. Like Varric. Drop her at the Viscount's office every night before we go out,” she half-joked, but then she frowned. “We could make it work. We're young, yeah, and everything in the world is trying to go to shit again, but doesn't that mean we should really care about things while we can, in case things go wrong?” Grasping at something to say, they were both cut off by a sudden stench followed quickly by Tadwinks breaking out into a shrieking wail. Sera's ears visibly jerked and she flinched before gently pushing the stinky child towards her wife. “Nevermind.”  
  
“Still think we can manage this?”  
  
“Oh, I _hate_ shit!”  
  
“Well, I hate to tell you, darling, but babies shit,” she replied sweetly.  
  
“Ugh, yeah, yeah, you're so smart.” She stuck her tongue out and opened the armoire before shuffling through discarded rags of clothes they no longer wore, searching for one that would be big enough to use as a diaper. Turning the child around, she peeked into the back of the soiled diaper, only to immediately regret that action. Fighting her gag reflex, she held the baby at arms distance, which only served to make her scream all the more fiercely.  
  
Just as she was leaning to put Tadwinks on the bed, she felt a pulse of magical power dispel her barrier and heard the clamor of someone rushing up her stairs. Holding Tadwinks close, Olette spun around and summoned a wall of ice to block the doorway, but almost immediately a blast of fire split exploded forth from the middle. Olette cast a barrier on the three of them just a moment before Rowan Hawke rushed into the room, another ball of fire ready in her hand.  
  
Upon seeing Adaar and co. her eyes widened and her shoulders slumped. “What's the meaning of this, Hawke?” Olette asked, baffled by the entrance.  
  
“I saw Aveline as she was entering the barracks. She told me what happened to you and I thought I'd check in, but then I heard that awful screaming and I thought something was dying—what are you doing to that child?” Despite the abrupt end to their conflict, Tadwinks screams were even louder than before. Olette tried awkwardly bouncing her on her hip while Sera went back to searching for rags. “Why are you holding her like that?” Hawke chuckled and took the baby in her arms. “I need you to get a pot of water and get it hot. Sera, be a dear and hand me that ratty tunic. I'll tear them up and...”  
  
Eager to hand off that particular responsibility, Hawke's voice trailed off as Olette bolted to retrieve water from the basin they kept in the kitchen. She cast a warming spell on the water in the small pot she carried back up to her room. Hawke quickly dipped the rags into the water and rung them out. She easily went about her task and ignored Olette and Sera as they mutually heaved and stumbled just out of the room to stand in the doorway. “Do either of you have any elfroot paste? She's got a rash—that's why you're carrying on so much, huh sweetness,” she cooed at the baby. Olette hand her a jar that fit snugly in her palm that contained the desired remedy.  
  
“Told you Tadwinks was a girl,” Sera said, her voice nasally from being pinched so she couldn't smell. Hawke finished securing a fresh diaper and though the crying had greatly weakened, it had not yet abated. “What is it now?”  
  
“When did she eat last?” Hawke asked.  
  
“She finished a whole bottle of milk just before you got here,” Olette replied.  
  
“And did she burp well?” When she was met with nothing but blank stares, she older woman lifted the child to her shoulder and alternated forceful back-pats with circular rubs. Tad let out a surprisingly large croak before drifting off to sleep.  
  
“How'd you know how to do all that,” Olette marveled, while Sera nodded in agreement.  
  
“Growing up in Lothering, I would help my mother with my younger siblings. And then when I was 14 the baker's wife had triplets and they'd give me sweet rolls and cookies when I would come over and help with the children. It was always something I enjoyed. If you want, I could take her for the two of you. My servant Orana just had a baby and she lives at my mansion, so there's everything she needs, right there.”  
  
All too happy to surrender to Hawke's logic, the young couple readily agreed, thanking Hawke and wishing her fond farewells, they watched her fade into the distance and sighed in relief.  
  
“Well,” Sera started, wrapping an arm around her wife's waist. “You were right about waiting. We are sooo, not ready.”  
  
“Definitely not...but you know the best part of not having a baby yet?”  
  
“What?”  
  
Olette let her arm drift down her wife's back to settle on her rear before leaning down to murmur into her ear, “There's absolutely nothing keeping me from taking you upstairs and tongue fucking you until you're whimpering and quivering and begging me to let you come.” The elf woman face flushed with heat and arousal dimmed her eyes as a smile split her face.  
  
“Bet you I get to the bed first!” With that, she dashed upstairs laughing, Olette grinning and close on her tail.  



End file.
